less about the Sean Lewis hire (which I love).....but if part of this is a de facto history of the advent of the QB RPO i'd toss in the Bill Snyder KSU teams of the early 00's.
Michael Bishop, Jonathon Beasley, Ell Roberson.
Bishop was really good, Beasley was a wildly underrated college QB....having seen him in person a few times....and Roberson was freaky.
they won 10-11 games 6 or 7 years in a row. or close to it, too lazy to look it up. Snyder's first winning QB was Chad May, passer.....at some point Darth made the switch.
those were mos def the first "RPO" teams i saw.
i'm 54, i grew up in a town with a HS coach who was a Yeoman Veer acolyte....and pretty successful coach. but, we started running the Veer in 7th grade, same plays, blocking as the high school. kinda comical when we played our across town rivals running the same O.
edit:
for my own entertainments....and some googling, Snyder was the OC for the famous Hayden Fry U of Iowa staffs of early 80's pic they always show you on TV: with Barry Alvarez, Ferentz, Stoops, Dan McCarney, Bielema maybe? Snyder was also at North Texas with Hayden Fry before Iowa, totally in the 70's Veer Texas footprint. Darth was the OC for Hayden Fry for 10 years. And coaching at Austin College in Sherman, TX before that. and coaching swimming.
Also, those KSU teams had some great players.....Sproles, the various Locketts (!), Quincy Morgan, David Allen, Jon McGraw on D was a baller.....Terence Newman.....